In 2022 Dennis informed us that he would be retiring as a writer for Watchdog and Peace Researcher as of the end of that year. I invited him to write his own retirement notice. So, here it is, in his own words. And I have to say, this must be the shortest piece I've ever received from Dennis. MH.

"I would basically make four points on my retirement".

"My age (75) and underlying health condition and the need for less stress regarding research and writing on so many important issues account for one of these points".

"Second, I want to spend more time with my partner Rosalie and family".

"Third, I feel that I have said all I can say about the state of the world and the role of our own country".

"Fourthly, my old computer has said - 'enough is enough' and crashed!"

"In solidarity and best wishes to Murray and the team!!"

I want to take this opportunity to profusely thank Dennis for his decades of writing for Watchdog. Dennis exemplified long-form journalism to the nth degree. And nobody ever died wondering what Dennis thought about an issue (or an individual, for that matter). The earliest Watchdog in which Dennis wrote for us was issue 68, October 1991. For the next 30+ years there was hardly an issue without an article, or sometimes a review, by Dennis, right up until 161, December 2022.

He Alerted Us To Issues Years Before We Realised Their Significance

"But all this enthusiasm for a space industry in Aotearoa/NZ not only violates sound environmental principles, it displays a stunning naivety and ignorance about the global reach of the US military machine. Not only is Rocket Lab now an American TNC, it is also a fast track for integrating NZ deeper into the US military-industrial complex". Dennis wrote that in Watchdog 145, August 2017, long before the progressive movement, let alone NZ society at large, had woken up to the threat posed by Rocket Lab.

And in his long discourses on geopolitics, Dennis returned again and again to certain themes and events. I thank him (in my capacity as Editor of both Watchdog and Peace Researcher) for never letting us forget about the monstrous unpunished 20th Century crime committed by "our" side, namely the Indonesian genocide of the 1960s. Mass murder is mass murder, whether committed by the Khmer Rouge or Suharto, actively egged on by the West, but hypocrisy and "real politik" dictated that only one of those criminals was denounced by the West.

To quote from Dennis' final article, in issue 161: "Ironies can yet run deep. A Press headline for a brief column item proclaims that 'Bali Wounds Still Raw' (13/10/22). Yes, this is yet another example of the hugely 'politically correct' syndrome of Western hypocrisy in action. The report was about the commemoration on Bali '20 years since a twin bombing killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists, including 88 Australians, 38 Indonesians and two New Zealanders' (ibid.)... The bombings were indeed a horrible terrorist act. But the victims about whom the Bali wounds are still raw amounted to just over 200 people dead. At least some 80,000 or so people died in the slaughter on Bali in the mid-1960s, i.e., 5% of the island's population".

For the first decade of those 30+ years, Dennis was a CAFCA Committee member, a role that only ended when he permanently left Christchurch for Reefton more than 20 years ago and we see each other far too infrequently - he and Rosalie came to Christchurch in 2022, and that was the first time we'd seen each other since 2013.

Becky and I and mutual friend and colleague Warren Thomson spent a very pleasant midwinter day with the two of them. Thank you, Dennis, for your tireless research and writing for us for more than three decades. Enjoy your retirement with Rosalie. But I have to say that, with Dennis Small and Jeremy Agar, our two most prolific and long-serving writers, now both gone from Watchdog, it truly is the end of an era. MH.